Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza has been just on the outside looking in at the UFC middleweight title picture for quite some time.
And he’s not about to take the heat off the top contenders at 185 pounds any time soon, either. The former Strikeforce champion finished tough veteran Tim Boetsch inside of a round on Saturday night at UFC 208, using a Kimura to score the submission victory at 3:41 at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.
Souza’s 17th career submission victory was his second straight win and 10th in his past 11 fights as he held his ground on the short list of contenders for champion Michael Bisping’s belt.
Souza showed proper respect for the hard-hitting Boetsch’s power early, and indeed, Boetsch managed to pop him a couple of times.
But Souza caught a Boetsch leg kick, flung him to the mat, and it was a matter of time from there. Souza worked Boetsch over until he got the opening for a deep and nasty Kimura.
After the bout, Souza took aim at both Bisping and former champ Luke Rockhold, who dropped out of a scheduled November fight with Souza due to an injury.
“I’m going to be a champion. I do my best, and I want to fight for the title,” Souza said. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better, Bisping you have to stop running, Luke you have to stop running.”